Figaro's throat
Lefebvre tells us in his construction of space¹ that in order to destroy a society the conquerors razed its monuments to the ground by fire or demolition. Today, nothing needs to be destroyed, it destroys itself with a ‘well-designed’ tourist offer. Who can live near a tourist attraction? David Harvey² says that tourism drives out the inhabitant. I do not want to turn this into a citizen's critique of touristification. My interest is, in this context, in how all this influences us to think about ourselves. Should we continue to ‘sell ourselves’ or begin to ‘build ourselves’.
I live in Triana (Seville), and for some time now, I have had the feeling of being part of a set. Like Figaro³, I move between facades, fast rhythms and drum and bugle bands. The full immersive experience Truman Burbank feels when he discovers that his whole life is a set⁴.
The profitable thing is in putting yourself out there. Design the props well. Designing with a nostalgic touch without expecting that the best is yet to come. The best of us seems to be gone. We must design in our Barber costume and use the most authentic typography to adorn Rosina and carry her in the arms of Count Almaviva.
We design to be observed, to fulfil the script of the expected. We design, like the absent Triana, under the direction of an invisible spectator who always expects the typical... but with duende.
Triana no longer exists. Not as it is projected in the mind of those who have heard Figaro sing it. Triana does not exist. There is the simulacrum of Triana⁵. The design that decorates its streets, its themed bars. It does not produce a city, it produces representations of a city. The ‘local’ designer is no longer needed. The ‘outside’ designer enters the scene like the set designer of an opera where he represents the work that everyone expects to see. Authenticity has become a trap. It is now a consumer lure. If someone wants an authentic experience of Seville, they should take a walk through the ‘Tres Mil viviendas’. Here design does not dare to adorn balconies, unless it is to cover up reality.
Guy Debord already spoke of the ‘showcase city’⁶, and Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello warned us that capitalism has learned to use the alternative as raw material⁷. Everything that used to be resistance is now sold as lifestyle. It seems that Figaro's only role is to decorate and brighten up the streets with joy. Design has become the boutique of the alternative. If there is no more resistance, if there is no alternative, then we are all sold out.
Is there a possibility to build ourselves? Is there an ethic of the designer in this context? Difficult. Because an ethic requires not only a "for what" but also a "from where". And that "where" is in crisis. We design for algorithms, for tourists, for followers. Triana prepares for the visit, and Rossini prepares the stage for the arrival of his audience.
Authenticity is no longer enough. Authenticity must be staged. Design thinking" proposes that we focus on the user. But who is the user? The algorithm? The AI that rewards what most resembles what already works? Design is not free of ideology. And to think that aesthetics is neutral is one of the great contemporary frauds. Behind every formal choice there is a position, even if it is by omission.
Can design be something else, can it be a tool to imagine alternatives, to paint over souvenirs, to open up to other worlds? It is not a question of returning again and again to the same thing, because the same thing no longer exists. It is about accepting what is ours, without dissimulation, without a masking strategy. Figaro's throat is no longer the same. It resembles Cohen's or the old Sabina.
The zombie design has to be discarded. The one that still works but has lost its soul. The one that moves by inertia, by metrics, by likes. A design without conflict, without doubt, without body. The phantom design doesn't bite, but it doesn't beat either.
It can be sung from deep hoarseness. From wear and tear, if you like. From suspicion. Not to solve, but to provoke. Not to embellish, but to expose. To design, like someone who writes a letter that doesn't expect a reply.
Because if the designer can't afford to introduce ideology, then he only paints scenery, and that doesn't build anything, that's decorating the cage. And that doesn't build anything, that's decorating the cage.
Do we want to sing to be liked or to like ourselves? Do we want to continue doing costumbrist posturing or could we imagine other points of view?
We can clutch at Figaro's old throat and close the Gran Tutti Final with a last sigh that says:
‘Amore e “molteplicità” eterna si vegga in noi regnar!’⁸
………
¹ Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Ed. Capitán Swing, 2013.
² David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, Verso Books, 2012.
³ Gioachino Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1816.
⁴ The Truman Show (1998), directed by Peter Weir, depicts a man whose life has been filmed without his consent inside a gigantic television set. A perfect allegory of contemporary hyperexposure and the aesthetics of simulacrum.
⁵ Jean Baudrillard, Simulacres et Simulation, Éditions Galilée, 1981. According to Baudrillard, the simulacrum is not only a copy of reality, but replaces reality itself: a hyperreality where there is no longer any difference between the real and its representation.
⁶ Guy Debord, La société du spectacle, Buchet-Chastel, 1967. Debord analyzes how modern life has been transformed into an accumulation of spectacles, where the lived experience has been replaced by its media representation.
⁷ Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello, Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme, Gallimard, 1999. The authors analyze how contemporary capitalism incorporates critical, alternative, and creative values to regenerate itself and remain relevant.
⁸ In the opera, Figaro embodies the figure of the lively, popular, and elusive mediator. His song expresses a manufactured authenticity, a voice of the people that, paradoxically, is written to entertain the aristocracy. The final quotation has been modified to include 'molteplicità' instead of 'fede,' underscoring the tension between fidelity to oneself and a multiple and constructed authenticity.